The consolations of photography...
I've recently finished Alain de Botton's interesting book The Consolations of Philosophy and it got me thinking about what the consolations of photography might be. You may be wondering why would I wonder at all about the consolations of photography? Surely photography doesn't produce or require consolations, surely it's just a simple pleasure (a past-time akin to gardening) or, at most, a simple desire to create. But for us to go to the trouble and expense of travelling across the globe and getting up at a seriously unsociable hour to make an image, surely there must be more to it than that. Conversely, for a viewer to be attracted to a photograph there must be something in it that rewards them – either emotionally, or intellectually, or aesthetically, or all three. Might an image do more than this, might photography alleviate the pains of a viewer or the woes of a photographer?
As a photographer, it has seemed to me for some time that my relationship with photography exhibits many of the same traits as an addiction: I need regular 'hits'; as time goes on I become inured to my level of 'exposures' and 'need' bigger hits; I experience extreme lows between receiving my doses of photography; I spend a disproportionate amount of my life thinking about making photos; I don't think about the costs (social or fiscal) when I'm getting a hit. All sure signs of an emotional addiction though, thankfully, not a physical dependency – I say thankfully because if it were a physical dependency I am surely doomed. I fear that my body will soon rebel against the 3:00am starts and the effort of dragging 20kg up a hill as I approach my sixth decade. Perhaps this is why playing with a digital compact is beginning to seem so appealing!
As well as highs, any addiction always has downsides. For me these include a large amount of time spent away from home and my relative poverty (compared to those sensible people I was at school with who now have proper, grown up jobs and five bedroom houses in Buckinghamshire). But the highs do console, easily compensating me for the lows. I wouldn't swap my life for another. It is very hard to surpass the moment when you place a 5x4 transparency on the lightbox for the first time and, miracle of miracles, find that you have largely fulfilled your vision. Perhaps it doesn't quite achieve the ecstatic feeling that accompanies a religious revelation, doesn't quite compare with the physical intensity of a sexual climax. But the intense feeling of euphoria that I experience when it all goes "right" has kept me coming back for more for 25 years.
Picking apart the causes for my addiction is bound to be only partially successful but I think that I have determined six motivations. I want to:
Record the beauty I find...
I have written at length about beauty elsewhere so I only want to reiterate here that a desire to capture the beauty we see around us is very often the foundation of any journey into art and it was certainly my starting point. I also believe that as we grow as artists so our sensibilities become more honed and so new beauties are revealed to us. This progressive revelation, this expectation of there always being more to find, is also key to my continuing fascination with photography.
Explore the visual realm – not to "express" myself!
I used to think (and say, if asked) that I was expressing myself through my photography, but I'm no longer comfortable with the notion of self-expression through the medium of a single image. My dictionary defines self-expression thus:
noun
the expression of one's feelings, thoughts, or ideas, esp. in writing, art, music, or dance.
The problem I have is with the word 'expression'; it implies a transmission of accessible data, the transmission of a "message". But images, dance or music don't have an agreed set of definitions. They aren't the same as words or even facial expressions; there's no possibility of truly knowing what has been 'said'. There's no direct translation of these art forms into words or emotions, often there's no possibility for even a partial translation. Single images are my métier but I strongly believe that there cannot be a clear transmission of meaning or emotion through a single image. Any image is both a window on the world and a semi-silvered mirror of the photographer. At its best it can reveal something about both, at worst it only tells you what you already knew or weren't interested in finding out. No matter how sharply focused, a photograph is a distorted and indistinct representation of the many signifiers it carries. If one really seeks self-expression then words are the best means.
I do still make images because I am moved or intrigued by the subject, but I don't have an expectation that an audience will have more than a vague notion of these motivations. So, rather than seeking to "express" myself I now think of what I do as an exploration. All I can do is hope that the resulting images might sometimes be a revelation to an audience, or at least resonate with them.
Find the boundary between description and evocation...
This is really another part of my journey of exploration. I want to find the boundary because for me this is the most exciting and elusive part of photography. The idea that one might make an image that is a perfect description of some thing but which evokes something greater, or something else entirely, is intoxicating.
The imperfect nature of message transmission via a photograph means that this process is bound to be a bit hit and miss – but it's fun to experiment. Given that photography is such a poor transmitter, how can we know where the boundary lies? I think only by observing where it lies for us individually and with our own images. Perhaps one of the greatest conundrums is how we might make an image yet find that the result surprises us, that it tells us something unexpected. How can it when we were there from beginning to end? That's such an exciting question for me. I don't think that we can find the boundary with a systematic search. I think that only by innocently playing with photography might we find some answers.
I found my friend Giles Stokoe's recent talk*, "Why we make images", both relevant and very interesting. I was particularly taken by his comments on play and photography as it struck a chord with my own views. I've thought for some time that we take our photography far too seriously (hark at him, I hear you cry!) when we should be playing with it. There is a temptation to stop messing about once we have reached a certain level of technical and compositional competence; to stick with what we know, to "play" it safe. This way we know that we will produce reasonable images. But this way lies stagnation. If we want to grow as photographers, we need to take what we've learnt and play with it with childish abandon. We should strive to see with the innocence of a child, work with a child's disregard for rules and their fearlessness about getting things "wrong".
Console myself with a glimpse of the possibility of perfection in an otherwise imperfect world...
Salvador Dali reputedly said "Don't worry about perfection... You'll never reach it" but for me a 5X4 image that I make that both excites me visually and is technically good is as close to perfection as anything that I will ever encounter in my life. It is also the most direct translation of my imagination. That is why I feel that the tranny is the embodiment of my vision; it is both a near-perfect object in its own right and the closest I will ever get to a perfect realisation of my vision. Not perfection but damn close.
I'm obsessed with form as is photographer Robert Adams. He asked the question, "Why is Form beautiful?" and answered, "Because, I think, it helps us meet our worst fear, the suspicion that life may be chaos and that therefore our suffering is without meaning." This might seem a little melodramatic, perhaps even quasi-religious. Adams isn't suggesting that Form is the meaning of life but just that it suggests that there might be some meaning. Part of my motivation for photography is the desire to reach an imperfect understanding of the world, to glimpse order within the chaos that surrounds me. Without photography there are so many things in life that I would never have truly seen, perhaps never have even noticed. Photography provides for me a way to dissect the world, to distill a visual essence, and in the process to begin to understand.
Create...
Cecile B. DeMille said "Creativity is a drug I cannot live without." What can possibly be more satisfying than making something? Enough said.
Please myself...
All of the above combine to make photography a pleasurable experience for me. But more importantly photography is an area of my life where I am in control(?), where I can do as I please without having to worry (at least at the moment when I release the shutter) what others think!
* At the Light & Land Discovery Day
